It’s sort of wild to think about, but after an extremely long and winding road, Black Widow is finally coming out in less than a month. This will be more than two years after the last Marvel movie, Avengers: Endgame, hit theaters, meaning people are going to flock to the film—but they might be surprised by what they see.
In an interview with Fandango, director Cate Shortland discussed the movies she watched before filming Black Widow, and it sounds like watching Marvel’s “Infinity Saga” was only part of the preparation: “First, we looked at things like No Country for Old Men. And then we looked at things like Thelma and Louise. And the Marvel film—people that have seen it have said it reminds them of it—[is] Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” But that’s not all. While Shortland didn’t get into more specific films, there were other inspirations: “I looked at a lot of combat films and a lot of stuff where we were looking at armies and militia. And then, I put females in those roles.”
The combat films make sense, but “armies and militia” is very curious. We know that Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) isn’t the only Black Widow, but is one of many assassins churned out by the Widow program. But I wouldn’t think they’d be considered an army, per se...unless the Widow program was borne out of an army of female soldiers sometime in the past? That could be pretty cool. Also cool: This Black Widow clip that Fandango also debuted.
As you can see two Widows are chasing our Black Widow and her partner Yelena (Florence Pugh). The action is frenetic to say the least—and, according to Shortland, this scene alone took over three weeks to shoot. Additionally, a small (very small) featurette dropped that showcases some more of the movie’s action scenes, which look just as compelling:
And here’s another tiny for you, featuring a very good look at film’s villain, the Taskmaster, to round everything out:
All three videos have dropped within the last few days. Hey, Marvel? We’re quite aware Black Widow is coming out next month and we’re quite excited about it. You can chill out a little.
In addition to Johansson and Pugh, Black Widow stars David Harbour as Red Guardian, Rachel Weisz as Melina, and even have an appearance by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, reportedly. It premieres on Disney+ July 9.
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